Camilo Echavarria

Illustrated Landscapes Illustrated Landscapes stems from a close relationship with the natural landscape, the product of multiple trips to different territories of my country, Colombia, as well as an interest to establish questions regarding the way intangible elements such as subjectivity and idealism pervade representations of landscape throughout history. I am interested in constructing landscapes that transcend traditional photographic representation defined as an image which registers a determined fragment of space in a specific moment of time; landscapes in which the presence of man, either as observer, inhabitant or agent of transformation, manifests itself in different ways adding complexity and subjectivity to their meaning. Man is vital for the existence of landscape as a concept since without his presence nature is nothing more than an ensemble of mountains, rivers, clouds, etc. It could be said that a landscape exists only from the moment somebody observes, contemplates or represents it. This allows us to assert that subjectivity is inevitably present in all landscapes, a feature that is evident in the majority of landscape representations in the history of painting. Rarely throughout this history does the content of a picture corresponds faithfully to what it’s creator had in front of his or her eyes. The way we shape our vision of natural landscape through it's representation, as well as the variety of implications inherent in this process, are the main concerns that I intend to address in this project.